The Worst Run Administration in the United States
By 
I mean, you want to say it’s the Trump administration, right?
Carl Higbie has interviewed for the position of White House press secretary, according to two senior administration officials familiar with the matter.
“Well, I can say that I’ve offered my services,” Higbie confirms for Washingtonian when reached by phone. “I haven’t heard back from the administration yet. I’m honored to be even considered for this.” Higbie says he has spoken with “a number of people” in interview rounds for the post.
Higbie interviewed for the position on Thursday, according to the sources. Higbie declined to confirm this.
Higbie, a former Navy SEAL, is close with the Trump family, particularly Eric Trump, whom he met in the green room after appearing on the Kelly File last year. He was one of the first official surrogates for the president on the campaign trail. He was also spokesman for the Great America PAC, which purported to earmark donations “from the grassroots” for the Trump campaign.
Higbie sparked the wires this week after stating on CNN that Senator John McCain — with his own history of “crashing planes” in Vietnam — should apologize for suggesting that the Yemen raid was “unsuccessful.” He found himself in a heated Twitter exchange with Meghan McCain, the senator’s daughter, over his comments.
It’s unclear what this means for the future of Sean Spicer’s post as press secretary, or whether he will take on the role of communications director. The post has been vacant since Jason Miller, dogged by allegations of an affair with a fellow aide, stepped down before Trump’s inauguration.
And it’s a strong case. But then there’s the Knicks. Holy moly.
Sometime Wednesday — as I watched Charles Oakley go face down on the Garden floor and get handcuffed, or maybe it was the next day when I read another of the Knicks president’s cryptic, emoji-laden Twitter posts that might read better if I were stoned — this thought occurred:
Start running, because this building is coming down.
I don’t mean that just because of this Knicks season. The team of my youth lets go of seasons like a lobsterman tossing underweight crustaceans back into the Gulf of Maine. I mean the entire Kremlin by Seventh Avenue apparatus run by the glowering James L. Dolan.
The Garden’s insistence in this case on not just booting Oakley — who no doubt behaved badly, pushing security guards and cursing — from his seat at the game, but gang-tackling and handcuffing him on national television, was bad optics raised to high art. The Kremlin printing press swung into motion. A Knicks Twitter post arrived: “Oakley behaved in a highly inappropriate and completely abusive manner.”
It ended: “We hope he gets some help soon.”
Let’s turn now to the confounding Zen Phil. He was there Wednesday night and, as so often is the case, he appeared to be looking in, bemused, on his own absurdist theater show. I applauded his hiring two years ago. He was an older man trying to learn a new trick: running an N.B.A. franchise. But he was a brilliant, iconoclastic coach and author who motivated and needled and massaged the prickliest of stars into one-for-all championship runs. And he had the ego and sense of self to make Dolan back off.
As it turns out, I was demonstrably correct only on the last point.
Jackson’s most fateful decision was to re-sign Carmelo Anthony and to grant his star’s demand for a no-trade clause. Anthony is forthright in the locker room, after infrequent wins and more frequent losses. Anthony was the pillar of the team’s one true playoff run of his time here. And he has a social conscience, speaking out on gun control, among other issues.
He is well into his 30s, however, and some nights his legs look as heavy as dining table staves. Too often he slows the offense to a torpor.
A savvy team president might go to his aging star and work out an amicable parting. A savvy team president might keep those talks private, seeing no point in running down an asset.
Jackson is not that man. No longer forced to meet with the news media daily, as when he coached, he prefers to cultivate an air of mystery, the enigmatic Captain Beefheart of this hair-on-fire administration.
Honestly, I’m surprised Trump hasn’t brought Dolan into his administration. He has the level of competence that Donald Trump loves!